Marked for Ruben Seferovic
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Aug 2028
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Basel people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
Lugano wanted more than $8.2M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Market21 Aug 2028
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Squad21 Aug 2028
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Transfer targets21 Aug 2028
Basel had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bunyodkor, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Market21 Aug 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Words at Basel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yunus Akgün is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match19 Aug 2028
Nobody wins at Basel
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad21 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Basel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad17 Jul 2028
Maxwell Gyamfi damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market17 Jul 2028
Terms done: Metinho is going
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Thun waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Basel is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $734.2K of what Basel paid for Javier Belman is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Market17 Jul 2028
Javier Belman has left for Lugano in a $2.1M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market17 Jul 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Basel heard it as anything else.
Market17 Jul 2028
Hebar come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Basel did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Yunus Akgün falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Tempers go at Basel
Alexander Nollenberger was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Both of them Žan Celar's — 8.62
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.62, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market26 Jul 2027
Diosgyor come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Basel did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad26 Jul 2027
A row about effort at Basel
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yunus Akgün was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Basel
Mirko Salvi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match24 Jul 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Žan Celar’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Basel.
The terraces26 Jul 2027
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Yunus Akgün was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Loan watch26 Jul 2027
“I watch every Basel game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Rapperswil-Jona runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad26 Jul 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ruben Seferovic and Basel agree another 4 years.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
When it matters, Xherdan Shaqiri plays
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Kevin Rüegg